Out of the Darkness

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, June 25th, 2023:
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Romans
5.12-15​

Brothers and sisters: Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, so death spread to all people because all have sinned. Sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

When I consider original sin, I sometimes imagine myself parched with thirst. Along comes someone with a glass of clear, cool water, and just as I am reaching to accept it, already feeling the healing that will come with drinking it, a single drop of dark ink is added to the water. Within seconds, the water is no longer clear as the ink spreads evenly throughout it. My eyes focus on the ink, blotting out the pureness that was once there. I know I can no longer drink it, and my parched throat cries out in disappointment.

One man’s sin stained all his descendants. The ink of his sin pours through my once clear and stainless body, and because I am human, I add more ink on a regular basis. In fact, I take that glass of inky water, set up a canvas, dip a paintbrush into the water to load it up with even more ink and darken the entire canvas some days.

And then I read that “if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God,” reminding me that in one act of pure obedience, Jesus Christ saved the entire world from sin. He bore the weight of the sins of the world so that I could be set free from that original sin. I now have the freedom to make choices that please and honour God. I can put down the paintbrush. It is as if a hole was punched through that canvas and suddenly all my eyes see amid the darkness is the light that shines through. The light that is the abundant outpouring of God’s love for us … the God of second chances.

He is the ultimate artist, painting pictures filled with beauty and colours that, like the ink, spread evenly and go on forever … through me to my children and my children’s children, reaching far back into the roots of our family tree. How can I not praise Him?

Let us pray. Father God, I thank You and praise You for the gift of salvation through the sacrifice of Your only beloved Son. I thank You and praise You for loving the world so much that You gave us a second chance, restoring us to a state as white as snow. I ask for the wisdom to exercise my free will in a way that always honours You and brings others into the light of Your grace. Amen.




​Sandy Graves

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